The community can multitask. But can our administration? A government's competence can be measured, in part, by its ability to handle a diverse range of issues at the same time. This is why Chief Executive Donald Tsang Yam-kuen's decision to postpone the consultation on universal suffrage, given the economic climate, got such a poor reception.
Mr Tsang believes people's main concerns are the economy and livelihood issues and, by implication, they would not want to have their attention diverted from bread-and-butter issues.
It may well be that people are most concerned about job security right now. But it does not mean they cannot deal with other things. Indeed, our lives are full of things we need to deal with, whether we like it or not. Few of us, in our personal lives, can drop everything and focus on only one matter.
Organisations and institutions have no option but to multitask constantly. As for governments, there are so many important issues that must be attended to that it is just not convincing for political leaders to give the impression that they cannot deal with a multitude of problems at the same time. That was presumably why critics suggested that the secretary for constitutional and mainland affairs should take unpaid leave, since he would have nothing to do.
Ahead of Mr Tsang's statement in the legislature, mainland officials had already said they didn't think it was the right time for Hong Kong to consider directly electing its chief executive in 2012, whereas previously Beijing seemed prepared to consider it. It was with this in mind, presumably, that the chief executive had promised to hold public consultations at the start of this year.
The reason for Beijing's change of heart seems to be the poor economic climate. The assumption appeared to be that it would be unwise to deal with politically controversial issues when people were feeling negative in general. Beijing may well be thinking not only of Hong Kong but also of the mainland.